Spring and summer in Michigan are the best seasons. Nice weather, lots of sunshine, pretty foliage. At the peak of the summer, it stays light until 10 p.m. (!), which is fantastic if you don't have little kids who need to be asleep at a decent hour.
Two years ago in the spring when Jellybean was almost 2, out of the blue, she stopped going to sleep at bedtime. She stayed up and jabbered to herself, sometimes working herself into a hyper lather, necessitating that one of us calm her back down to sleep after an hour or so. L and I finally put together -- duh -- that the lighter evenings (it's light past 8 p.m already at this time of year) were contributing to her inability to fall asleep. So, we shifted her bedtime later and eventually found a balanced time that she would drift off. We were prepared for the same last year with her and shifted her bedtime accordingly as we saw the same pattern emerging, and it worked out fine.
Peanut was still unaffected last year, as she was still 9-10 months old and needed her baby beauty rest. But this year, Peanut is definitely noticing the lighter evenings. About 10 days ago, we put her down for bed, and she was not her automatic lights-out self. She started talking and singing and even screeching -- happily -- to herself. L and I didn't know what to do; despite the pleasant tone, we couldn't help but think something was wrong. See, she is "old faithful" when it comes to bedtime and naptimes (don't worry, it wasn't that way at all in the beginning). We put her in her crib, leave the room, and she's asleep instantly. Not so with the daylight evenings. We've had quite the concert at 7:30 for the past week; she mostly sings "Annie" songs, but whatever comes to mind apparently will do. We've pushed her back to 7:45-7:50 and have had more success (translation: fewer songs), but it looks like we'll be sliding even later as the summer progresses.
I've decided that the ever-changing kid's bedtime in the spring and summer is just another of the warm-weather rituals in Michigan, like getting out the patio furniture or putting on sunscreen. Now if I can just get myself to keep the same bedtime when it's light at 10 p.m.
2 comments:
7:30?! Yikes! We must be night owls!
We don't even start the bedtime process until 9pm or so. I don't think that she would sleep if we even tried to put her in bed before nightfall! But we get the luxury of sleeping 'in' most mornings, though she doesn't mind waking up early on occasion.
On a side note, I LOVE Annie! I can't wait to show it to Ladybug!
Two words: blackout curtains (Bed Bath & Beyond). We've used them since Theo was an infant and rarely have trouble getting them to sleep by 7, even in summer. Very early and consistent bedtime is one of the few things we've been very strict about from the get-go (we actually have trouble handling them past 7, since they're go, go, GO! all the freakin' time, as you saw during your visit, and they wind up being *harder* to get to bed because they're too wound up). Anyway, the curtains don't make it pitch-dark in there but it's dim enough that they don't seem to even notice that it's still light out. I wouldn't mind a *little* later bedtime during summer, especially now that the boys are getting old enough to be kind of fun (riding bikes, playing with the dog, etc. outside) BUT they get up at the same time in the morning (by 6:30) no matter what time they go to bed (Theo is even earlier when he's sick). So I'll take the early bedtime if it means slightly less cranky kids. Hey, that way they have energy to do stuff in the a.m. in summer when it's cooler out rather than during the hottest part of the day! :-) And it's REALLY nice to have the entire evenings to ourselves. But I digress... Hope she gets used to the longer days soon!
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